With great power comes great responsibility, and we’re pleased to announce that recent changes have turned us from marketing heroes into marketing SUPERheroes (and we take that responsibility SUPER seriously!)

The League of Digital Marketing Superheroes known as Generations Beyond has recently acquired Promotion Associates, adding valuable new skills to our bag of marketing tricks. Promotion Associates brings two decades of experience in the field along with it, and expands our capabilities in event marketing, on-site and street-level marketing, branded sampling opportunities and more!

By Merging with Promotion Associates’ Jeremy Mutschler, debuting in his new role as Generations Beyond’s Senior Development Director, we’ve also added a host of super brands to the Generations Beyond family, including Green Giant, Ortega, Red Mango, Pirate’s Booty, Skinny Girl and more!

This is a time of big change for Generations Beyond, but fear not, citizens! We are more than up to the task! Keep an eye our for future emails introducing more of our new cohorts in the fight against poor marketing.

We’re ready and able to tackle any marketing enemies you may encounter, so if you need us, just give us a call.

If you have any questions regarding our new alliance, or if you’d like to call, or even meet our new teammates, we welcome you to contact us by phone, email, or using your handy dandy GB signal!

Not content with working all day, digital marketing firm owner uses his family to achieve the new American Dream of “going viral.”

When most people get home from work, they kick off their shoes, have dinner, and watch some TV, to get a break from the workday. But Jesse Wroblewski, a Long Island Ad Exec grabs his family, and some props, and creates quirky viral videos.

“Going viral” has become the new American Dream. A clip of a child going to the dentist, opening a Christmas present, or even biting a sibling can now snowball into fame and fortune.

Wroblewski has made several fun video projects with his family and friends, but his most recent effort, a spoof of Stanley Kubrick’s classic film “The Shining” has recently caught on with the masses:

The video, a somewhat family friendly mock-80’s style commercial for a “The Shining” board game (also created by Wroblewski) has now been featured on websites such as “Indie Wire,” “Birth, Movies, Death” and “Bloody Disgusting,” to name a few.

“Suddenly,” continues Wroblewski, “people are subscribing to my YouTube channel, and kids are showing up at my door asking to play the game, it’s amazing!”

We proudly present the latest from the GB labs. It will undoubtedly be the best damn recruitment video you see today! Enjoy:

The job market can be a tough for a prospective employee, but Long Island based digital marketing firm Generations Beyond has found that it’s no easy task for employers either. “It’s been incredibly difficult for us to find just the right team member,” says Jesse Wroblewski, founder and CEO of Generations Beyond. “We felt like we’d exhausted traditional methods, and we wanted to get creative. Creative is our business, after all, so we thought, what’s something we all love?” The answer, as it turned out, was film.

A rapidly growing firm, hiring is a constant challenge, as larger projects require a growing staff, but at Generations Beyond, it’s not just about the resume.
“Fitting in is a big deal for us,” says Project Manager Jo-Anne Guiliani, “We all love to have fun, and we like to have fun together. The ad really showcases the culture at Generations Beyond. Not that we’re thugs or anything!”

The idea was originally conceived as a joke about client requests. “You can’t help but wonder what a client is thinking when they hire experts to do a job, and then don’t accept that advice,” says Brendan Bailey, head of Creative for the firm. “I was mimicking that scene from Goodfellas with Joe Pesci, and everyone said, you know, people should see that, it’s hilarious.” With that, the idea for a Goodfellas themed recruitment video took shape.

“It was a little daunting” says Corey Adams, who heads the videography department. “The idea of remaking an iconic scene that’s already been flawlessly shot by Scorsese? That’s intimidating. But I’m really happy. We really pulled it off, and it’s funny too, which is great.”

The finished commercial, which follows the life of “the kid, Henry” as he first interns, and then works for, and finally takes a wrong turn and abandons Generations Beyond, is an unusual way to recruit, but for Owner Jesse Wroblewski, that’s what makes it great. “We know this film is not for everyone, we want to attract those special types of people that get it.”

On January 7, 2015 Long Island lost one of it’s most prized small businesses to a tragic fire. Collectors Kingdom in Huntington, NY was a haven for fanboys and fangirls alike.

When the marketing superheroes at Generations Beyond heard about their fellow comic book nerd elite and all around small business owner was in distress there was only one thing to be done:

Assemble and combine our superpowers for the good of mankind (and Long Island) and ensure Collector’s Kingdom rises from the ashes to become the most powerful mecca of all things nerdy in the universe once again.

We at Generations Beyond are proud to be hosting a fundraiser event on February 27, 2015 to help this once great Long Island based small business rise again!

We’ve activated our secret web design, event promotion and social media marketing powers to alert the citizens of Long Island to our cause.

We’ve rallied the masses to donate, don their superhero garb for the cosplay contest and eat much pizza for a great cause.

Now it is up to you dear reader and true believer. Will you join us on our quest this Friday, February 27, 2015 at 7pm?

Sure everyone wants to be a superfriend, but only a few can make it onto our list (seriously the fire marshal will shut us down)

When the secret identity alliance at Rubies Costumes in Huntington, NY heard about our cause they generously sponsored our Cosplay Contest! Think you have what it takes to win a “Supreme Edition Darth Vader Helmet? Strut your stuff at 9pm on the 27th!

Having an event on Long Island? Need to get the word out? Generations Beyond has created this free PR Checklist for you to utilize in getting the most exposure for your event via the availability of free postings online.

Click the image below to download your copy of this handy, free checklist!
Think you need more help? Contact us today! We’re great at publicity and packing out events!

Facebook has recently switched up how posts are seen by users. This new change has small businesses scrambling to reach their followers as they discover only 2-5% of their audience is actually seeing posts, favoring a more “pay to play” approach as opposed to organic or viral methods.

Does this mean Facebook is a dead end?

No! While it is more difficult for businesses to be visible on Facebook, consumers are still more likely to buy from brands they follow on social media.

– Most of social media marketing is trial and error; let the bigger companies with large marketing budgets figure out what doesn’t work. Use them as a template for what you should be posting.

Stay on the pulse of your industry and market

– Trends come and go so quickly, once we find out about them on mainstream media outlets, they are already on the way out. Find the most important/knowledgeable sources in your industry and discover the influential voices in your market. Keeping ahead of the trends will keep you relevant on social media.

Generations Beyond is very proud to announce an all-new alliance with Silicon Valley based, leader in offer science Fanplayr. We believe that adding this powerful new tool to our extensive toolbox at Generations Beyond will help us drive even more leads and traffic to our existing family of clients. Press release is below:

Offer Science’ Company Hits Landmark as Result of Partnerships with Ecommerce Leaders Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) October 17, 2012

Fanplayr, the leader in Offer Science, today announced that it has signed its 1000th online retailer since launching just six months ago in March 2012. This milestone is due to the popularity of the company’s two Offer Science products, ‘Gamified Offers’ and ‘Smart & Targeted Offers’ with the industry leaders with whom the company has partnered, such as eBay’s X.commerce, Magento, Shopify, Ifeelgoods, MailChimp, First Data, CardSpring and Constant Contact. These companies have all integrated Fanplayr into the fabric of their marketing services, offering them to their Internet retail customers who have readily adopted them. “Online merchants are moving quickly to adopt Fanplayr’s Offer Science because it provides them with the ability to identify, profile and segment each visitor in real-time with targeted offers that increase visitor conversion, revenue and lifetime value,” said Simon Yencken, CEO of Fanplayr. “Fanplayr is democratizing consumer identity and Big Data for all ecommerce retailers so that they can build better relationships with their customers through the same advanced identification and targeting technology used by such major retailers as Amazon.com and WalMart.com that turn visitor identity into insight for real-time offer marketing.”

“We are really impressed by Fanplayr’s Offer Science and believe that it will transform how retailers identify, segment and target their online visitors,” said Jesse Wroblewski, Founder of Generations Beyond. “As a new Fanplayr partner, we are excited to be able to help our clients target their desired traffic segments with offers designed to drive key performance revenue objectives.”

About Fanplayr
Fanplayr (http://www.fanplayr.com) is the leader in targeted real-time ecommerce offers. By harnessing the power of Big Data, Fanplayr’s two proprietary Offer Science products, ‘Smart & Targeted Offers’ and ‘Gamified Coupons & Offers’ marketers can identify, profile and target visitors with customized offers as well as with gamified coupons. Fanplayr is venture backed with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. More information is available at http://www.fanplayr.com.

Somehow, someway, they all got drunk, had some freaky orgy and gave birth to a new “Choose Your Own Adventure” style viral campaign from Hell Pizza, a franchise eatery in New Zealand. An easy win for our Video Marketer of The Month for August 2010:

Like any good viral campaign this one draws you in and allows you to interact with the brand. At first I was hesitant to take on the seemingly long task (more than 60 seconds in the youtube time/space continuum) of going through the entire adventure, but the high production value, great fx and comedic moments (I don’t know why but it kills me every time a New Zealander calls someone a dick) had me stuck to my desk chair until the end.

I had to jump in early on this one, the only accolades I could find at the moment were 100,000+ hits within 4 days and a Video Professionals award but Im sure many more are to follow suit. Add “Avoid Ego Media’s” Video Marketer Of The Month to the list if it makes you feel any better… and if you can find some time away from all the new customer traffic you must be mustering!

I was recently interviewed by Long Island Business News on the topic of my last post about using video on the web to estabslish yourself as an expert and drive traffic to your website.

During the interview we spoke at great length about the topic however LIBN must have had to really broaden the topic to reach a more general “non-techy” audience. It helped me realized that while this is an incredibly cheap, fast and powerful way of marketing via the internet it can also seem a bit overwhelming to the casual business owner so I plan on creating a video explaining this great means of marketing very soon! Stay tuned!

Jack Chapman, a salary negotiation expert in Chicago, wanted to increase the amount of time people linger on his Web site. So he added video.

In the past, that might have been complicated and costly, requiring new coding, the use of a special server to accommodate video, and a studio. Not anymore.

Chapman used $70 floodlights and a video camera to record himself at home giving free salary negotiation tips and then uploaded the video to YouTube. Jesse Wroblewski, owner of Mastic Beach-based Generations Beyond, helped him link the video to his Web site and Chapman was ready for his close-up.

“It looks like you’re playing a video on my site,” Chapman said. “All you’re doing is clicking a button and watching a video on YouTube.”

As the Internet shifts from a static to a moving medium, firms are finding they can make the leap to moving pictures with little more than a camera, a computer and creativity. And sites like YouTube are making it easier than ever.

“I don’t know how I would’ve done it,” Chapman said. “You can embed video in a Web site. But I don’t know how to do it. This was easy enough.”

Wroblewski said small and large companies increasingly use YouTube and other video search engine technologies to present and post videos easily, quickly and cheaply to grow their business and recruit.

“They do it all,” he said of YouTube. “They host your video. If you get a million visitors, you’re not going to see an increase in your budget.”

Murray Kleiner, president of technical writing firm Murray Kleiner Associates in Plainview, said sites, such as YouTube, shield small businesses from additional costs.

“When you have videos on your server, it takes up bandwidth and you pay for that,” he said. “If you put it on YouTube, it’s not your problem anymore.”

Other video search engines let companies post videos including Metacafe.com, Dailymotion.com and Vimdeo. And Myspace and Facebook offer video. But Wroblewski said YouTube, owned by Google, is the giant garnering the most hits and postings.

“Now that YouTube is so popular, people are using it to search for what they need. You can film a video, upload it to YouTube. Within a half hour it’ll be indexed,” Wroblewski said. “We’re helping clients create videos to get them indexed on YouTube to drive traffic to their Web site.”

And Kleiner said YouTube’s biggest benefit may not be ease of use, but traffic. “Because more people visit YouTube, there’s a good chance they may get to see your video,” he said. “If your video’s only on your Web site, the biggest challenge is to get them to go to your Web site.”

Companies also can create what amounts to their own Web page on YouTube filled with videos offering tips, demonstrations or communications with viewers.

“Each company can brand their own page with their corporate look and feel to stand out from the crowd,” Wroblewski said. “It’s a big sea, but compared to all the other search engines on the Internet, it’s still a tiny pond. You’re talking about all the Web sites in existence versus the videos there.”

Wroblewski said companies can use video to position themselves as experts and connect with customers. “People see you on a video,” Wroblewski said. “You’re sharing your information with them. It’s instant rapport. It builds equity in who you are.”

Video also keeps people interested longer than text. Chapman’s average site visit since he posted his video rose from 30 seconds to longer than two minutes.

“By putting videos there, people stay there longer and look at the rest of the content,” Chapman said. “It seems that the pedagogy of having me talk about things worked better than making people just read.”

In addition to getting interest and business, companies can monetize traffic to their video. Metacafe.com pays for videos generating 10,000 or more hits. “If you provide useful enough information, you can get a check cut for uploading your video,” Wroblewski said.

Although posting video to YouTube is free, firms face risks. Viewers can post malicious comments unless firms turn off the comment function. Inappropriate videos can go up in the “related video” bar based on words you type to describe your video. “Companies may want to keep control of their own stuff,” Kleiner said.